Quote from: IC798891 on Today at 11:45:43 AM

Quote from: jknezek on Today at 11:02:30 AM

Quote from: y_jack_lok on Yesterday at 10:41:38 PM^^^ Yeah, guess that's about right. They probably figure people won't notice small stuff like that. They certainly don't. I'm just gonna keep pointing out all these things and see if they're paying attention and make changes.

Good luck. I talked to some of the W&L and Emory parents at the soccer game this weekend. They were pissed in a resigned kin of way. They pay for their kids to go to these rich schools, they pay for them to play sports, they are hit up for money constantly, and now they have to pay again for the games. It's such a scuzzy double dip by these schools. I feel embarrassed to be an alum. There is no defending it.

They should be reaching out to the AD and the VP of Philanthropy about it.

Trust me, I made that point. AD, President, BoT, etc.

Quote from: Another Mom on Today at 11:41:32 AM100% agree. They need goals and it isn't clear where they are coming from.

And I won't know since that's probably the last game I'll watch. Shame, it was fun watching them come together last year. But maybe I'll get some tourney games to watch. Can't say I'm going to be checking boxscores. Just not that interesting.

So I went to Atlanta for the W&L games. It wasn't good. Last year when I saw those first two games I said they had talent but no idea how to play the way a new coach wanted them to play. As the season went along, coach and team adjusted to each other and the talent shown through.

That was not the problem this weekend. This weekend they played the system fairly well, better against Ogelthorpe than Emory, but well enough. I just don't ont think they know where the goals will come from.

If they push the two in off the post and crossbar they likely tie Emory and beat Ogelthorpe, so it wasn't a disaster, just unlucky. They really controlled Ogelthorpe for all but about 20 minutes of the second half, a 20 minutes that W&L seemed to be deep into their bench, and the PK Ogelthorpe scored on was pretty soft.

But that game shouldn't have been 1-0. They need a scorer, and I'm just not sure who it could be.

The game against Emory was not great. Emory played a high line with a lot of pressure and W&L lacked patience. Every transition was pushed up as fast as possible and resulted in aton of lost possession and having to get back on defense. No midfield patience hurt and eventually conceded a goal Emory earned. Emory deserved the win, but W&L had chances.

Anyway, W&L will be dangerous to everyone. They have midfield and defensive talent, but unless someone steps up to score 10 goals or so, it's going to be a tough season with a lot of these "could have been" games slipping away.

Quote from: y_jack_lok on Yesterday at 10:41:38 PM^^^ Yeah, guess that's about right. They probably figure people won't notice small stuff like that. They certainly don't. I'm just gonna keep pointing out all these things and see if they're paying attention and make changes.

Good luck. I talked to some of the W&L and Emory parents at the soccer game this weekend. They were pissed in a resigned kin of way. They pay for their kids to go to these rich schools, they pay for them to play sports, they are hit up for money constantly, and now they have to pay again for the games. It's such a scuzzy double dip by these schools. I feel embarrassed to be an alum. There is no defending it.

It's not growing pans. It's a service being run on a shoestring because they don't want to invest in the broadcasts. The business plan is to build a paywall, the broadcasts are the school's problem.

Real, accurate information and interfaces require people. People are expensive. Investing in people is not how Flo makes money.

Well I'm sucking up my FloSports anger and taking my boys to Atlanta for the W&L-Emory and W&L-Ogelthorpe games.

So those will be the games I'm watching and possibly the only ones this season until the NCAA tournament.

In lieu of my typical donation to W&L athletics I sent back a nice note telling them to take it out of the money Flo is paying them. I'm suddenly more interested in how my high school teams are doing, and way less interested in D3. Next weekend I'm supposed to drive over toward Atlanta to see the W&L men's soccer team play a couple games. Normally I'd be pretty excited, but I'm just struggling to get up the motivation.

I'd like to go support the team, but if that's all I'm going to see this fall, since I absolutely refuse to pay for nothing more than a gatekeeper, it's a hard sell.

Quote from: CNU85 on August 14, 2025, 11:18:13 AMI understand the need for multiple revenue streams for D3 athletics. I just think, as others have stated, there is a cost to using Flo in that you may lose exposure to fans.


Captains Lager

No, see, this is the problem. There should be no need for multiple revenue streams for D3 athletics. D3 athletics is literally "pay for play." If your student athletes aren't paying enough, or the schools is not deriving the benefits of having student athletes on campus through tuition and stronger student bodies, you are doing D3 athletics wrong and you should be ending your athletic program.

D3 athletics should not be a drain on the university that requires "multiple revenue streams." D3 athletics SHOULD BE a revenue stream. This is where everything goes wrong when colleges try to turn athletics from tools to generate a better student body to a tool to independently make money, or independently cover costs.

I would argue that a D3 athlete now has a very good case, under the concept of the House case, to take every school that gets sports revenue from Flo to court for a portion of the proceeds. As we've seen with D1, it's not about profitability, it's about a college generating revenue on the backs of the student athletes.

These D3 conferences are being unbelievably stupid and shortsighted. This is bad for current parents, bad for alumni, and, if they aren't careful, it's going to be the base of a lawsuit. All for what? Pennies. Literal pennies on a college budget.

Every time I think about this, I want to go grab all these Presidents and ask how people who are supposed to be so smart, are doing something so stupid, when colleges are already under attack... especially smaller, liberal arts colleges that make up the bulk of D3.

They need to be out selling these schools to students, talking about the value proposition of getting a degree at their school, not nickel and diming perspective student parents to try and stave off one more year of financial trouble.

It's infuriating.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on July 22, 2025, 08:21:01 AM

Quote from: jknezek on July 21, 2025, 07:40:53 PM

Quote from: Ralph Turner on July 20, 2025, 01:25:06 AMMy schedule has lightened, so I can resume managing the poll.

Let's have a pre-season poll, weekly polls in the regular season and a final poll after the playoffs.

Glad you are picking it back up! Thanks. Didn't want it to die.

Thanks.

I hope you will continue to vote. Your insight and comments are greatly considered.

Hard to vote when you can't watch the games. I think I will sit this one out.

Quote from: Ralph Turner on July 20, 2025, 01:25:06 AMMy schedule has lightened, so I can resume managing the poll.

Let's have a pre-season poll, weekly polls in the regular season and a final poll after the playoffs.

Glad you are picking it back up! Thanks. Didn't want it to die.

Quote from: y_jack_lok on July 21, 2025, 09:55:58 AMI'm not passing judgment on the accuracy of the above. However, if the Fitch analysis is based on 56 private non-profit colleges "in their portfolio' (what does that mean?) that is probably less than 10% of the number of such colleges in the country. So, is that enough of a sample to draw a firm conclusion?

I have to admit that I knew nothing about Fitch before your post. I've been to their website and tried to find out exactly which 56 institutions are "in their portfolio". I've also done a general Google search for same and the "AI Overview" only comes up with four names (Maryville U in Saint Louis, Maryland Institute College of Art, Midwestern University, and Grand Canyon University).

You have to be a Fitch subscriber for that info. Which unfortunately I am not, even on the business side. However, Fitch is a well-respected rating agency. I suspect the 50+ colleges represent a few from each rating they assign, a few large, a few small, etc. Enough for a broad overview, not enough to apply the analysis down chain to individual schools. However, if your school has a general, non-special revenue, bond issue outstanding, and Fitch rates it, you can reasonably infer how much trouble Fitch, or other respected ratings agencies like S&P and Moodys, thinks the school is in for the issue.

For example, W&L has about 28 bond issues for $150 million outstanding. Most are municipals, uninsured, tax-free, and they carry a AA2/AA rating from Moody's and S&P. Not rated by Fitch apparently, so W&L would probably not be in their portfolio. R-MC carries about 43M outstanding in 43 issues. Most are municipals, all are uninsured, all are tax-free, and they carry a A rating from S&P. So again, not Fitch rated, unlikely to be in the portfolio.

Neither school would be rated anywhere near distressed. Sweet Briar, on the other hand, who has had their issues, has only 7.5M outstanding in a handful of issues, but they are rated BB+, much more or a distressed rating. Why did I choose these 3? Because 1) they are ODAC schools and we both are ODAC people, 2) they are colleges we'd be interested in, 3) it shows the variation, and 4) it shows that debt, in and of itself, is not bad. W&L carries the most, but has the ability to carry the most and is the highest rated. Sweet Briar carries the least, probably shouldn't even have that much, and is the worst rated.

So if you are a parent looking for a place to drop 100K or so over the next 4 years and want to be fairly certain the school will be around until your kid graduates, check the endowment. Make sure it's $250M or more. Make sure it hasn't been cut in half over the last few years. Check the enrollment. Some attrition since COVID, sure. 25% or more? Not good. Check the recent news. You don't have to go crazy, just look at the headlines. And check a bond issue or two. You can usually Google it. A ratings and above, pretty good. BBB, ok. BB, getting bad. B or below? Not good.

There are few things as expensive as a college education that we will buy in our lifetimes. We research houses, cars, wedding rings, the major purchases. Start doing more research on schools than just which one your kid likes. While that is important, they are going to spend 4 or so years there presumably, it's not the end-all, be-all when you are writing pretty massive checks.

Quote from: HSCTiger fan on July 18, 2025, 02:05:16 PM$20 bucks?  That's a bargain. Money much better spent than watching anything on Netflix. If only a few bucks goes back to the schools then that's a few bucks more than they got before. I went to one football game last year in person. I spent more than $240.00 on the hotel room alone. I did watch every other football game and several basketball games online. I don't anticipate any changes to my viewing habits in the years to come.

Well, you are definitely what Flo is hoping for.

Quote from: SKUD on July 17, 2025, 07:44:53 PMPeople angry about FLO who have not used it prior to now and are complaining, Please tell me you don't pay for any of the following: HBO/MAX, Netflix, AppleTV, ESPN, Disney, YouTube TV, or any other Streaming subscription. If you pay for those what bothers you about FLO?

I dislike the Flo platform (as a paying customer for over 10 years) because it is not on par with other streaming platforms and from a college athletics perspective it has hurt the production quality of the conference I follow. When it was sold to the conference it was sold as a way to improve and achieve minimum standards. The better schools have lost their best broadcasters, not upgraded cameras or camera position and the schools that were horrible are only marginally better.

Welcome to my world.

I pay for 2 streaming services at a time. We rotate them when they go stale. But here's the thing, Flo provides nothing to the customer. For $20 a month, Netflix gives you access to a library of things they don't create (a la Flo), and a library of things that they pay to create (all those Netflix exclusive shows and movies).

What does Flo create? Nothing. The broadcasts are the same as what you got before, essentially. There is no value added to Flo. They do nothing besides aggregate what was already out there, mostly for free, and charge you for it. They pay the school some nominal amount to do so, but they add nothing. The whole business model is wall off what was free, do nothing but provide the wall, and get paid to do it.

That's what is so aggravating. If they did something, added something, besides the wall, it would be a different story. But they don't.

Quote from: HSCTiger fan on July 18, 2025, 11:15:39 AMI have no issue paying a few bucks to watch a game with favorite team. Honestly, I doubt many parents will either. If the production quality is better it will make the game more enjoyable. If it's the same quality as it has been I still don't mind. It's a very small price to pay for the ability to watch a game.

$20 a month to watch D3 sports... yes, parents are the ones who are going to pay. Not many others are. It costs more than the vast majority of other streaming services. Think of it this way, for about $20 a month you can get Netflix. Access to big budget movies, they produce high quality content, thousands of hours of it. What is Flo giving you for $20? Exactly the same feed and broadcasts that you got for free. There is, literally, no added value. The school gets some money, presumably less than Flo makes, though I have my doubts about the business model long-term.

So you have introduced a middle-man that makes money and provides... nothing.

If you are happy to throw $20 a month at Flo, that's certainly your money, your business. I just won't do it. I don't watch enough W&L sports, or D3 sports in general, to spend $20 a month. But yes, let's slap it on the parents who are already paying room, board, athletic fees, etc. and nickel and dime them even more so those who are paying to play sports now have to pay to watch their kid play the sport they are paying for them to play.

Quote from: SierraFD3soccer on July 17, 2025, 01:43:53 PM

Quote from: Kuiper on July 15, 2025, 01:24:07 PMODAC signed a deal with Flo Sports starting this fall

QuoteFloSports and the Old Dominion Athletic Conference (ODAC) have entered into an exclusive five-year media rights agreement that will begin in the fall of 2025, bringing the conference's 14 member institutions to the FloCollege platform. Through the agreement, FloSports will provide a global platform to live stream over 1,500 regular-season and postseason events annually. The partnership further reinforces FloSports commitment to Division III athletics - adding an eighth conference to the portfolio - bringing the total to 18 conferences across all NCAA levels in the Fall.

The ODAC, headquartered in Forest, Virginia, stands as the second-largest multi-sport NCAA Division III conference in the country. It has gained national attention hosting NCAA Division III championships in baseball, men's and women's basketball, football, women's lacrosse, men's and women's soccer, softball, men's and women's swimming & diving, and women's volleyball.

The ODAC's full-time member of 14 schools includes Averett University, Bridgewater College, Eastern Mennonite University, Guilford College, Hampden-Sydney College, Hollins University, University of Lynchburg, Randolph College, Randolph-Macon College, Roanoke College, Shenandoah University, Sweet Briar College, Virginia Wesleyan University, and Washington and Lee University. The ODAC also features five associate members in five sports.

"This agreement reflects a thoughtful next step for the ODAC in how we tell the stories of our outstanding student-athletes," said ODAC Commissioner Brad Bankston. "As technology and fan engagement habits evolve, we have a responsibility to adapt while staying true to our mission. FloSports provides a reliable and forward-looking platform that helps us deliver a consistent, quality experience for our teams and fans. Most importantly, this partnership enables us to highlight the achievements of our athletic programs across our wide sports offering - at a level they deserve and with the reach they have earned."

Very much a shame. Look of good games every year in soccer, but 9 or 10 ODAC teams are not very good and have not been for a long, long time. It was working pretty well before with all the schools broadcasting their games free.  I will not purchasing (W&L grad) and I am guessing that, other than parents, will not be buying the games.

Yep. I'm out too. I'll still go to the games in Atlanta this year to support the players, but I'm so hopping mad at W&L about this. I hope they were an "against" vote and just got out-voted in the conference, but we'll never know. I put some comments to the athletic department already on Facebook and elsewhere. I don't expect it will change much, but at least I voiced my displeasure with this short-term thinking, money-grabbing, idiocy.